Nathan De Jager
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
Backend systems · AI workflows · Business platforms
Nathan is Co-Founder and CTO of BluEclipse Technologies, and the sole developer of Vendorah — a production business platform and protected commerce network spanning web, Android and iOS. Architecture, database, backend, both mobile apps, the payment and escrow flow, the accounting engine, the courier integrations and the AI assistant are all his work.
1
Developer on the entire platform
3
Shipped platforms — web, Google Play, App Store
64
Capabilities in the Vallery AI assistant
One developer, the whole system
Nathan holds a BSc in Information Technology (Software Engineering) with Top Achiever recognition and Golden Key membership, and specialises in backend-heavy full-stack systems: transaction infrastructure, payments and escrow workflows, API integrations and applied AI.
Vendorah is a production platform built by one person from architecture and database design through to two published mobile apps. That is unusual at this scale, and it is the reason the platform is genuinely connected rather than integrated after the fact — orders, products, services, bookings, delivery and accounting share one data model because one person designed all of them at once.
It also shapes how decisions get made. Security and reversibility are settled at the architecture level rather than patched at the edges — which is why Vallery can read the entire business but cannot change a single record without a person approving the exact diff, and why a store can never be pointed at another store's data no matter what the AI produces.
The work
What he has built
Five systems that had to exist before Vendorah could take a single real order.
The platform itself
A connected business platform rather than a set of tools sharing a login: storefronts, product and service catalogues, orders, bookings, inventory, quotations, invoices, accounting views, customer messaging, promotions, analytics, subscriptions and access control — one data model underneath all of it.
- Next.js / React / TypeScript web application
- Capacitor applications published to Google Play and the App Store
- Firebase backend — Firestore, Auth, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging
- Multi-tenant architecture with role-based access control
Five commerce models, one checkout
Most platforms pick one shape of sale and make everything else awkward. Vendorah supports stocked products with variant-level inventory, custom products that need a quotation and approval, lead-time products with production windows and capacity limits, electronic products, and services with availability and booking workflows.
- Variant-level inventory with per-variant price, stock and images
- Quotation-and-approval flow for custom work
- Production windows and capacity limits on lead-time products
- Secure digital product delivery
- Availability, capacity and an advanced resource calendar for services
Transaction & escrow infrastructure
The part that has to be right. Nathan integrated TradeSafe’s GraphQL workflows with Vendorah’s own operational state, so transaction progression and fund release are driven by fulfilment evidence — the carrier reporting delivery, the buyer accepting — rather than by anyone asserting it happened.
- Payment and escrow state machine tied to fulfilment evidence
- Vendor transaction ledgers and settlement validation
- Scheduled bulk payouts, payout restrictions and dispute holds
- Transaction auditing and accounting exports
- Secure six-digit handover codes for delivery and collection
Vallery — the AI assistant
A voice and text assistant with 64 permissioned capabilities across products, inventory, orders, invoices, bookings, scheduling, delivery and accounting. The architectural point is that AI interpretation is separated from operational writes: the model picks a name off a fixed list, and a person approves the computed diff before anything changes.
- Unified tool and action layer turning natural language into permissioned operations
- Staged writes, structured action payloads and explicit confirmation gates
- Multimodal product analysis — image-assisted catalogue validation and classification
- AI-assisted compliance review returning structured corrections before publication
- Invoice and quotation generation from dictated line items
Fulfilment & trust systems
Courier booking and tracking against real carriers, and the vendor-trust machinery that decides who is allowed to trade.
- Aramex, The Courier Guy and PUDO integrations, plus store delivery and collection
- Google Maps-based location and routing
- Vendor onboarding with identity and address review
- A 0–100 Vendor Vet Score driving warning, probation and suspension thresholds
Experience
Where he has worked
Co-Founder & CTO / Lead Engineer
Jan 2024 — PresentBluEclipse Technologies — Vendorah
- Designed and built Vendorah as its sole developer: Next.js/React/TypeScript web application, Capacitor mobile applications and Firebase backend — released across web, Google Play and the Apple App Store.
- Built the platform in collaboration with 34 product and service vendors, using their operational feedback to shape inventory, orders, payments, fulfilment, bookings and services.
- Developed transaction infrastructure covering payment and escrow states, vendor ledgers, settlement validation, scheduled bulk payouts, dispute holds, payout restrictions and auditing.
- Integrated TradeSafe GraphQL workflows with operational state, linking fund release to fulfilment evidence, delivery completion, buyer acceptance and disputes.
- Implemented delivery and pickup flows with secure six-digit handover codes, courier booking and tracking, and Google Maps-based location functionality.
- Built vendor onboarding and trust systems: identity and address review, visible verification status, and a 0–100 Vendor Vet Score driving warning, probation and suspension thresholds.
- Architected Vallery around a unified permissioned action layer, letting voice and text requests retrieve business information and perform structured operations across the platform.
- Developed AI-assisted validation and compliance workflows using language and image analysis to inspect listings and return structured corrections before publication.
- Delivered customer-facing software through BluEclipse, including iWeathar’s published Android application and iOS application work.
Junior Software Engineer (Part-Time)
2021 — 2023Asyst International
- Contributed to production point-of-sale and retail-management software — inventory, transaction processing, reporting and operational workflows in established commercial codebases.
- Worked across backend logic, databases and administrative interfaces alongside senior developers, troubleshooting and shipping production feature updates.
- Built administrative interfaces for marketplace-style operations covering content, branding, inventory and system management — while completing a full-time software engineering degree.
Head of Assessments
Jan 2020 — Dec 2024Core Teaching Essentials (Remote, USA)
- Managed assessment and grading operations for more than 80 students across multiple classes, supervised additional markers, and developed standardised rubrics and review processes.
Selected projects
Other things he has shipped
Vallery — AI business operations assistant
Vendorah · 2026
A voice and text assistant with 64 permissioned capabilities. The interesting part is not the conversation — it is the action layer underneath, which converts natural language into structured operations against real business APIs while keeping every write behind a human confirmation.
Read moreiWeathar customer applications
Capacitor, Android, iOS · 2026
Delivered and published iWeathar’s Android customer application and worked on the rebuilt iOS application, including Xcode configuration, archives, certificates, provisioning profiles and App Store distribution.
Groote Schuur venue booking system
Android, Kotlin, SQL · 2024
An Android booking application for venues, equipment and ground staff, with scheduling and conflict-detection logic preventing overlapping resource allocations.
Photo Focus — batch photo triage
Python · Independent
A lightweight tool that scans image folders and sorts them into focused and flagged directories using a mathematical sharpness algorithm rather than a model — adjustable strictness, and it handles intentional background blur without flagging it.
Toolset
What he works with
Languages
Backend & APIs
Frontend & mobile
AI & automation
Payments & transactions
Infrastructure & integrations
Apple development
Architecture
BSc Information Technology (Software Engineering)
2021 — 2024Eduvos (formerly Pearson Institute of Higher Education), South Africa
Additional training: CompTIA A+ · Cisco Packet Tracer · AWS Cloud Computing
Vendorah is what this adds up to
One connected platform for South African product and service businesses — storefronts, bookings, orders, accounting, delivery and protected payments.